


Burn for You

by owlways_and_forever



Series: The Mischief They Create [33]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Countdown, Death Timer, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:22:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29268669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlways_and_forever/pseuds/owlways_and_forever
Summary: Everyone has the mark. The inky countdown to the moment when you die. Unless you meet your soulmate first.Lily's countdown is almost up.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Series: The Mischief They Create [33]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1888561
Kudos: 7





	Burn for You

**Author's Note:**

> Hogwarts Houses Challenge | House: Eagles | Subject: DADA | Category: Standard | Prompt: [Romantic Pairing] Lily Potter (or Evans)/ James Potter | Word Count: 2435
> 
> Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry | House: Gryffindor | Subject: Muggle Studies | Task #2 | Prompt: Write about someone who is/feels trapped
> 
> Insane Prompt Challenge | House: Gryffindor | Prompt: 402 - [AU] Hospital
> 
> Modern Muggle!AU. Soulmate!AU.

_November 2, 2019. 10:28am._ That's what was written on her arm in black in, like a tattoo. The worst tattoo imaginable. Who wanted a countdown to the day they would die? An ugly reminder that they would perish, alone and unloved, sooner rather than later. All Souls Day. There was an irony in that, but Lily had been staring at that tattoo for far too long to appreciate it.

Everyone knew how this worked. From the moment you were born, you were fated for some tragic demise, but your soulmate was the one person who could stop it from happening. If you met them in time, the countdown on your arm that ticked away the minutes simply faded into your skin, into your bloodstream, and you would live the rest of your life the way people ought to - never knowing when you might go, but hoping it was a long way away. If you didn't, you were toast. Lily hated it. She despised the idea that her life centered around some arbitrary life partner that the fates had decided on. She loathed the idea that her life had to involve someone else at all. Why couldn't she be a successful, unmarried nurse who lived to the age of 103? Why did she have to die tomorrow unless sparks happened to fly tonight?

She could feel herself panicking as the day wore on. Halloween, and she was stuck working the graveyard shift. So basically, she'd be working until she dropped dead. Because there was fuck all chance that she was gonna meet someone in the ER who wasn't an absolute lunatic or about to drop dead themselves. Man, fate must really hate her.

"Hey, Evans, my shift is over, so you're taking over my patients." Marlene pulled her hair out from underneath her leather jacket and tossed the dark curls over her shoulders. "Frank and Alice, twenty nine and twenty seven respectively, engaged couple, admitted with severe memory loss, bruises and lacerations across the head and torso, and an array of broken bones. Looks like they were in a fight, but the injuries are all about a week old, and they don't remember what happened. A friend or neighbor or something dropped them off. We're keeping a close eye on their CTs to look for subdural hematoma or any indication of what's causing the memory loss and whether it'll be permanent. Oh, and she's pregnant."

Lily sighed heavily. She hated it when her patients were pregnant. Two for the price of one deaths, more often than not.

"Okay, I'll take care of them and let you know if anything changes," Lily said, nodding to her friend.

"You will not," Marlene replied, shaking her head vigorously. "I'm not on call tonight, and the Horse and Crown is having a wicked Halloween party, pun intended. So I'll be there, hopefully making out with some sexy vampire or something. I do _not_ want to be disturbed. Got it?"

"Got it," Lily smirked, halfheartedly laughing. She wanted to be happy and supportive and all that, but she was also infinitely jealous.

Marlene waved goodbye and sashayed out the ER door, off to her exciting party.

"Arrow to the face, coming through!"

"What?!" Lily whirled around, looking for the incoming trauma patient. It wasn't unusual for Halloween to feature some of the craziest injuries, but this was definitely a new one.

Two paramedics were wheeling a gurney into the ER, and on it lay a young man about her age. An arrow had pierced through his forehead and was exiting his head above his right ear, with blood drying across his face. Behind the group jogged two other guys - one dressed as Robin Hood and the other as a werewolf - both of whom seemed slightly intoxicated. Lily rolled her eyes. Of course Robin Hood had tried to shoot real arrows, how predictable. She pulled the stethoscope from around her neck and began to assess the patient.

"Okay, he seems stable," she said aloud to anyone who was listening. Inevitably, there was always a resident or two nearby. "I'd like to get a CT to check the extent of the brain injuries, and then page neuro so we can come up with a plan for surgery."

"He's gonna need surgery?" the Robin Hood guy exclaimed.

"Do you see the arrow sticking out of his head?" Lily snapped. She really hated morons like this.

"Shit, shit, shit," he swore. "I didn't mean to hurt him!"

"Frankly, you'll be lucky if you didn't kill him."

With a final withering glance, Lily followed her patient's gurney as he was wheeled toward the elevator for his scans. After a minute, she sent one of the residents - Mary, she thought - back to get as complete a patient history as she could from the guy's friends.

It turned out that this guy was the absolute luckiest guy on the planet (unlike Lily, who now had just a day and a half until she keeled over). Somehow the arrow had missed literally everything important, and they were able to remove it without any deficits. Once he woke up from the anaesthesia, he would be completely fine. It was a miracle. The two idiots had left during his surgery, saying that he didn't really need them there for that part anyway, and they'd be back once he was awake. The werewolf one had muttered something about telling his parents about it.

"Mmmh," the patient groaned, his eyelids fluttering as he began to wake.

"Mr Potter!" Lily hurried to interrupt, gently placing her hands over his chest to stop him from moving too much. "You've been really lucky so far, but you need to take it easy."

"Not something I'm good at," he mumbled, wincing slightly as he shifted in the bed.

"Well you're going to have to get good at it," she insisted, checking the monitors to make sure he was still alright. "It'll be a while before you're fully healed. Your friend really put you in a lot of danger, it was pretty stupid."

"Yeah, but it got me here to you, so it's not all bad," he grinned cheesily, and Lily rolled her eyes, even though she felt her heart stutter a little bit. She tried to push those feelings away, but it was hard when he kept staring at her with those beautiful hazel eyes framed by long, dark lashes.

"How did this even happen?" Lily asked, trying to clear her mind.

"He wanted to shoot an apple off my head," he said, his eyes drifting shut.

"And you let him?" she replied incredulously. "Why would you do that?"

"He said he could," Potter shrugged, closing his eyes. "He's my brother, I trust him with my life."

"Must be a very different kind of brother than my sister," Lily muttered almost under her breath. "I would only trust Petunia to end my life."

He laughed, wincing again slightly.

"He's not really my brother, I just call him that because…" he paused, almost as if he was considering how much of his life's story to share. "He's more like a chosen brother, I guess."

Lily smiled at his words - it was clear from his face how special his relationship with his friend must be, and it only made the affection for him that was growing in her heart swell that much more rapidly.

"I'm going to leave you to get some rest now," she said, standing and excusing herself. He needed sleep in order for his brain to heal properly, and she needed some space to regain her composure.

Once she was around the corner, Lily stopped and leaned back against the wall, taking deep breaths. How could she feel so strongly connected to him after such a short time? Was this what fate had in mind for her? With shaking hands, Lily pushed the sleeve of her coat up over her forearm and looked down.

_November 2, 2019. 10:28am._

It was still there. That stupid, ugly tattoo that marked her. Lily felt tears welling up and her deep breaths began to stutter as she tried and failed to calm herself down. He wasn't her soulmate. She hadn't found that person, and she was running out of time. And she _so_ wanted Potter to be that person.

Lily spent the rest of her shift trying _not_ to check up on Potter as much as possible, sending residents as often as she could. She just couldn't stand to be next to him, staring into his eyes for a second longer than she had to. It was torture of the most acute kind. But when her shift was over, after she had changed back into her street clothes and let her hair down from her ponytail, "she happened to pass by Potter's room. And he happened to be awake. And apparently watching for her.

"Dr. Evans!" he called out, and she instinctively pulled up short at the sound of her name, cursing herself a split second later. There was no pretending she didn't hear him now.

"Yes, Mr. Potter?" she asked politely, hovering in the doorway. "Is everything alright? Do you need something?"

"No, yes, everything is fine," he stammered, blinking those long lashes against his cheeks. You look really nice."

"Thank you," she smiled, taking a step further into the room despite her better judgment. "So what can I do for you?"

"Hang out for a minute," he shrugged, "if you don't have a hot date to get to. Sirius is undoubtedly too hungover to get out of bed and Remus is stuck at work today, so I'm all alone for a bit."

"What about your parents?" Lily asked, ignoring the tugging at her heart that his words had initiated

"They live a long way away, and Mum isn't really up for traveling these days."

Lily stepped farther into the room, chewing on her lip as she laid her coat over the visitor's chair. It didn't feel right to sit there, so she took the doctor's stool and scooted it next to his bed.

"Alright, Mr. Potter, you've got my attention for a little while," she said, smiling kindly.

"James, please," he replied, her smile echoed on his face. "You seem sad. What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," Lily lied, but the disbelieving expression on James' face told her that he saw right through it. "It's stupid."

"That's okay," he shrugged. "We're allowed to be upset about stupid things. And I'm willing to bet it's not as stupid as you think either."

"It's my date, my mark," she explained. "I don't have much time left and I was hoping that… I was hoping for a Hail Mary, I guess."

"Can I see it?"

Lily leaned forward and carefully tugged her sleeve up, but she looked away. She didn't need to look at the damn thing again, she knew what it said. She had fourteen hours left. James reached out and took her hand, rubbing his fingers across the skin where her mark was.

"I always wondered if The Fates were real and if they actually knew anything about our soulmates," James mused, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb back and forth over the delicate skin on the inside of her wrist.

"What do you mean?" Lily asked.

"Why does Fate get to decide who's my soulmate?" James ranted, his cheeks turning a little pink as he got excited. "I mean, if I want to spend the rest of my life with you, who is Fate to tell me differently?"

"I don't know," she whispered. She loved his words, how much he longed to be able to do whatever he wanted, to be free. It felt like they were the same, like he understood her. "Do you think… nevermind."

"No, go ahead," he encouraged, his eyes wide in anticipation.

"Do you think it's possible that someone could be our soulmate but not our saviour?" Lily asked. "I mean if I die tomorrow, but my soulmate is still alive, I can't ever save them, can I? Or are soulmates not reciprocal?"

"I think it's possible," James grinned, courage and confidence emanating from him. "I know it is, because my soulmate is sitting right in front of me, looking drop dead gorgeous, and my arm still says I'm supposed to die tomorrow. At the exact same time as her, coincidentally enough."

"You… wait, what?"

"How can I save you, Evans, when I'm also supposed to die?"

"Well, I must not be your soulmate then," she countered, her mind still reeling from the information that his expiration date was the same as hers, not to mention his declaration of love.

"Nah, that can't be right, I know you are," James said, looking at her with an intensity that scared her, but which she also craved more of.

"So what does that mean?" Lily asked, scooting her chair closer to the bed and reaching out to take his hand. "What do we do?"

"We hang out together until 10:28 tomorrow morning, and then we see what happens," James answered with a shrug. "We make the most of the next few hours."

It wasn't a bad plan. They talked for a while, learning as much as they could about each other - at least all the important things - and when James needed to rest, Lily crawled up onto the narrow bed with him and curled into his side, dozing off herself. When they woke, their time was so close, and they both began to feel fear and anxiety pulsing through their veins.

"What do you think it could be that kills us both?" Lily asked, watching the minutes tick by on the clock.

"Maybe we give each other a heart attack," James answered, raising his eyebrows and smirking in a very suggestive way. Lily wanted to smack him for such an innuendo, but she laughed instead, letting a little bit of her fear dissipate with the sound. "I certainly hope so, that would be rather pleasant."

Lily leaned in and kissed him, determined to stop looking at the clock, determined not to waste the rest of her time. She wanted to stop waiting, and spend her last moments living. She wanted to spend the rest of her moments kissing James, and based on the enthusiasm with which he responded, Lily was pretty sure that he wanted the same thing.

_BOOM!_

There was blast that shook the ground and a flash of blinding hot light as the world around them tore apart and the two hearts stopped beating in unison.


End file.
